


The Sound of Settling

by canistakahari



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Father-Daughter Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Meet the Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-28
Updated: 2012-09-28
Packaged: 2017-11-15 05:24:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/523620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/canistakahari/pseuds/canistakahari
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Joanna comes to visit, which just adds an intriguing new facet to Bones’s personality. Jim is understandably smitten.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Sound of Settling

Jim has always been a light sleeper.   
  
If something is beeping, dripping, ticking, snoring, talking, or stomping, it is highly likely that it will permeate his dreams, and after a confused moment of integration, whatever sound has forced its way into his consciousness will wrench him all the way awake and insist he  _seek out and destroy it_.  
  
Bones, on the other hand... Bones sleeps like the dead. Bones once famously slept through a campus-wide invasion drill that involved flashing red lights and a loud, repeated message over the loudspeaker the content of which was basically EVACUATE OR DIE, YOU BASTARDS.  
  
Unsurprisingly, Bones died.   
  
And got a demerit.   
  
And was soundly mocked by Jim, who was the one that had to “retrieve his ridiculous corpse” (which is how the drill instructor put it, after she finished crying with laughter). Admittedly, Bones had just passed out after a day of classes and a 12-hour clinic shift.   
  
But it was still funny.  
  
You’d think, for a man with a small, boisterous daughter, that he’d be accustomed to early-morning wake-ups, but apparently Bones copes with his standard level of sleep deprivation by falling into REM sleep abnormally fast and stubbornly  _staying_  in it for as long as humanly possible.   
  
It’s for this reason that Jim’s been idly watching Joanna attempt to wake her father for the last five minutes.   
  
It’s involved a lot of shaking and climbing and a few wheedling “daddy, wake up!”s and basically just a whole lot of obstinate determination to get to the point where Bones is half-way there, grumbling under his breath and squirming under the assault of Jo’s bony elbows and knees as she clambers all over him like a hamster.   
  
“Oh my god, what?” Bones finally demands, his first coherent collection of syllables. “It’s not even light outside, Joanna, you’re allowed to sleep in!”  
  
“I want pancakes,” replies Joanna, settling against her father’s side. He slings a lazy arm around her shoulders and sighs deeply. His eyes are still stubbornly closed.   
  
“And?”  
  
“And I want you to braid my hair,” she admits.   
  
Bones makes a helpless noise. “Which one do you want first?” he mumbles. His voice is rough and sleepy. He might still think he’s dreaming this. Jim hides a smile, watching from his own nest of blankets.   
  
“Braids,” says Joanna decisively. “Then pancakes.”  
  
“Okay,” sighs Bones. “Go get your hair-ties and sit yourself on the couch. Gimme a moment to wake up.”  
  
Joanna bounces off the bed to go hunt through her luggage; she’s only been at the Academy visiting for three days so far, but the two bags she’s brought have already exploded their contents over the cramped dorm. Bones occasionally stops in the middle of the room, standing equidistance between their beds, and looks around with a faintly worried expression on his face, like he’s imagining trying to pack this all up when Joanna goes back to Georgia.   
  
For a seven-year old, she’s got a lot of stuff.  
  
With his eyes still closed, Bones is in the process of sitting up in bed. He pats around for his jeans, finally finding them where they were thrown over his desk chair. With the attitude of a man who has practiced the act of clothing himself while half-asleep, Bones tugs his jeans on over his boxers without needing to standing up. Then he falls over for a while and appears to go back to sleep.  
  
Early on in sharing a dorm together, Jim discovered that Bones always sleeps dressed.  
  
When it’s warm, he wears a t-shirt and boxers to bed and when it’s what he terms  _cold_  and Jim terms  _temperate_ , he wears proper flannel pyjama bottoms and a long-sleeved t-shirt. No matter the temperature in the room, though, and the layers of clothing he wears in bed, the fact remains that Bones shivers if he’s not covered up. While Jim regularly kicks his duvet to the floor like it has mortally offended him and doesn’t use it at all between March and September, Bones never sleeps without it pulled it right up to his chin like he’s trying his best to become a burrito.  
  
On the handful of occasions where Jim’s gotten in late and found Bones already asleep, Jim’s taken to checking to see if Bones is adequately covered. If the covers have fallen down around Bones’s shoulders, Jim pulls them up and tucks him in, and feels a little swell of pride when Bones burrows down and lets out a little sigh, as if in relief.  
  
“Daddy!” calls Joanna. Her voice is pitched low, half-mindful of the fact that she thinks Jim is still sleeping. “I’m ready!”  
  
“Okaaaay,” drawls Bones. He peels himself out of bed and shuffles barefoot across the room to the tiny two-seat couch where Jo is perched on the arm. He stands there blinking at her for a moment, apparently coming to terms with reality, before he cracks a huge yawn and rubs his eyes. “Nah, sit down on the cushion, baby. I’m too tired to stand. Gonna pull up a chair.”  
  
“Okay,” says Joanna easily, sliding down onto the cushion, her back up against the arm and her bare legs stretched out in front of her.   
  
Her hair is long and thick and brown, falling in curly waves down around her shoulders, and Bones runs a fond hand through it as he drags a chair up and settles on it.   
  
“I’m awake,” he says, holding his hand out for hair-ties. “How many do you want?”  
  
“Lots,” says Joanna.   
  
“How many is lots?”  
  
“A hundred.”  
  
Bones makes a pained face where Joanna can’t see, though it drops away quickly. “Give or take a few?” he asks. His mouth twists up a little into an indulgent smile.  
  
“Yeah,” says Joanna. “I’m not gonna count ‘em. I just want lots. All over.”  
  
“You got it, sugar.”  
  
Jim falls asleep watching Bones divide Joanna’s thick hair into little bunches and wakes up again to the sight of him carefully plaiting each bunch into a neat braid. He’s more than half finished, deft fingers working quickly.   
  
Joanna is reading, Bones’s PADD balanced in her lap, and Bones is humming softly.   
  
He looks utterly relaxed, face smooth and free of lines, his own hair hanging in a thick shock across his forehead.   
  
The truth of it is that Jim is fascinated by the persona of Bones-as-father.   
  
He’s so different around Joanna; easy and loose-limbed in a way that he isn’t when she’s not around. Up until Joanna arrived, Jim though the stiff, anxious way Bones carried himself was just his natural body language. Then he watched Bones sweep her into a hug and spin her in a circle at the shuttleport and something incredible happened inside his heart.  
  
Sometimes, Jim struggles to think of what Bones must have been like when Joanna was born. He knows he was only 21 when she came along, likes to imagine him baby-faced and wide-eyed and in awe of her. Imagines those strong hands holding a tiny baby and ignores the tiny implosion that detonates in his belly at the mere thought. Sometimes he longs to tell Bones how  _cute_  he can be, how appealing it is when he’s totally unguarded and that hard, bitter exterior melts away and he can sit and braid his daughter’s hair for hours in contented good humour.   
  
“You missed a spot,” says Jim.  
  
Bones looks up, arching an eyebrow at him. “I think you’re just jealous,” he says easily.   
  
Jim is secretly thrilled. “Yeah. You got me. I long for a thick, lustrous mane of hair for you to braid.”  
  
“You could get extensions,” offers Joanna. Braids cover her head, now, tiny and neat and completely uniform. Bones has clearly had practice.   
  
“I think I’ll leave the cool hair to you, Jo,” says Jim. He drags himself out of bed and wanders over to them, scratching absently at his belly.   
  
“Okay,” says Bones, tying off the last braid. “All done, baby girl.”  
  
Joanna gives her head an experimental shake and turns around and climbs right over the arm of the couch and into Bones’s lap, giving him a headlock of a hug and a kiss on the cheek. “Thanks, daddy!”  
  
“Pancakes?” says Jim, smiling winningly at Bones.  
  
“Didn’t think you were asleep,” he sighs, rolling his eyes. “We’re going  _out_  for pancakes. I’ve got hand cramps.”  
  


oOo

  
  
Five days later, Jim takes the three of them to the shuttleport to meet Jocelyn and send Joanna home. Bones walks a distance away to say goodbye to Joanna, already looking a little teary; Jim stands with Jocelyn to give them both their space.  
  
“Hey,” says Jim, after they’ve said hello, talked about the weather, and exchanged brief life updates. “Have you got a picture of Bones when Jo was born?”  
  
“Yeah,” says Jocelyn, brightening a little. She pulls out her PADD and flips through the drive. “You will die over his apple cheeks, seriously.”  
  
“Oh my god,” says Jim. “Oh my  _god_.”  
  
“I know,” says Jocelyn. “His hair was always falling into his eyes. I’m not entirely sure how I was meant to resist that.”  
  
In the photo, Bones holds new-born Joanna, a stunned expression of nervous glee on his face. In his broad, long-fingered hands, she is tiny, and safe, and Jim might just vomit rainbows.   
  
“Can I have this?” he asks.   
  
“Only if you frame it and put it somewhere he can see it.”  
  
“Deal!”   
  
“What are you doing?” demands Bones suspiciously, when he trails back, only just dry-eyed, holding Joanna by the hand. Daughter has definitely inherited father’s round cheeks and heart-shaped face, Jim notices happily.   
  
“Nothing,” Jim and Jocelyn chorus.   
  
“Somehow I have trouble believing that,” Bones says dryly. He bends to haul Joanna into his arms, kissing her again and giving her a final squeeze before transferring her into Jocelyn’s arms. “Thanks for letting her stay,” he says to Jocelyn, kissing her on the cheek.   
  
“Send me the dates when you have holidays,” she replies. “And we can schedule another visit soon.”  
  
“See you soon, sweet pea,” says Bones, ruffling Joanna’s mass of braids.   
  
“Bye, daddy,” she says, sniffing. “I had lots of fun and I love you.”  
  
“Love you, too,” he murmurs, his voice going a little bit wobbly again.   
  
Jim stands with Bones as they watch Jocelyn and Joanna walk to their gate. “Maybe I can braid  _your_  hair,” Jim says. “To make you feel better.”  
  
Bones chuckles and Jim is rewarded by his rarely-seen dimples. He nudges Jim with his elbow. “What, and we can eat chocolate and talk about boys?”  
  
“If you want,” says Jim, shrugging. “I like chocolate and boys.”  
  
Bones shoots Jim an unreadable glance. “Hey. Seriously. Can I get you dinner tonight?” he asks.  
  
“Are you asking me out?”  
  
The flush creeps over Bones’s face slowly, like a sunrise. “I just wanted to say thanks. For being so good about Jo being over.”  
  
“Sure,” says Jim cheerfully. “But I don’t put out on the first date.”  
  
“Jim!” splutters Bones.  
  
“What?”   
  
Bones scowls. “Neither do I. Ass.”  
  
“Penis,” retorts Jim.  
  
“...Did you just call me a penis?”   
  
“I thought we were just saying rude words,” Jim replies mildly. “So, I like Thai food, and drinks with umbrellas in them. Flowers make me sneeze.”  
  
Bones snorts, collecting himself somewhat. “This feels like it’s turning into a bad idea.”  
  
“Yeah. We both live at the same address, so a one-night stand is kind of impossible.”  
  
Bones outright  _laughs_ , his eyes crinkling up. “God, you’re a dick. C’mon, I’m buying you take-out, and we’re eating at  _home_ , and we’ll see where it goes from there.”  
  
“Sounds good to me,” grins Jim. “We can watch scary movies and paint each other’s nails.”  
  
“Right. Instead of a date, we’ll have a slumber party,” Bones says dryly.  
  
“You know you want to,” says Jim.   
  
“Can there be popcorn?”  
  
Okay, so, maybe it’s not just Bones-as-father that fascinates Jim. Maybe it’s Bones-as- _Bones_.   
  
Maybe Jim just likes him any way that he can get him.  
  
(And there is definitely popcorn.)


End file.
